Pilates Certification Courses: An Overview

If you’re highly informed or even if you’re one of those people that just stay home, no doubt you’ve heard of the Pilates Exercise.

The purpose of Pilates Exercises is to stretch and to strengthen your body. That is why Pilates is so popular with most contortionists and ballet dancers. But just because people are using Pilates for physical improvement, and weight loss, it doesn’t mean that a Pilates exercise is a cardiovascular exercise.

Pilates is basically a low intensity exercise. Most instructors recommend Pilates with aerobics and other forms of exercise for best effects.

The Pilates Exercise was invented by Joseph Pilates, a German National, as a self exercise. Pilates was born a fragile child, sickly and asthmatic, so he took to exercise to improve his body. When he was a bit older, he was living in France, and was arrested as an “enemy alien.’ During his internment, he was assigned in the medical facilities of the prison and this is where he put Pilates into use, as rehabilitation exercises for the sick.

Since then the Pilates exercises has gained its reputation for helping improve the overall physical state of the body. Pilates exercise is a series of breathing techniques combined with stretching and a simple machine. Pilates exercises designed to improve the body’s core. This includes the muscles in the abdomen, back, and buttocks. Some say it is better than yoga overall because it strengthens the body through improving posture strength and flexibility through stretching.

The machines used in Pilates, are there to challenge the body, by making it stay in certain positions while moving the other parts in differing directions, thereby training the body to endure strain, thus increasing strength. The basic Ideology of the Pilates Exercise is the use of the body’s mental ability to improve movement, efficiency and muscle control, which is also why they say that Pilate exercise somehow improves one’s mental state. Pilates also makes you aware of proper posture.

Due to the exercises that you do, it also develops the muscles in the back and abdomen, further promoting good posture. Pilate exercise also uses breathing techniques, which further increases mental focus. And probably one of the greatest focuses of Pilates is flexibility strength of the muscles. It is this ideology that made Pilates popular among dancers in the begining.

Many Pilates enthusiasts and users have testified to the effectiveness of this program. With regular classes, the bodies become well balanced and stronger. Some say that after each workout, you can instantly feel the difference it has made to the parts of the body, mainly the legs back and abs. Aside from increased strength, weight loss is what many people aim for when they do Pilates exercises.

Other benefits of Pilates include increased energy levels, higher endurance, better flexibility, great abdominal workouts, and overall physical well being.

What you need and what you get from a Pilates mat exercise

Most people think of Pilates as a new form of exercise because of its recent surge of popularity in the fitness and healthcare industry. In reality, Joseph Pilates invented it about 80 years ago.

Pilates was a sickly child with asthma. To help fight his illness and build his strength, he experimented with various mind-body disciplines and later became an accomplished skier, diver, gymnast, and boxer. While in internment during WWI in England, he taught fellow interns his concepts and exercises that he developed over 20 years of self-study and apprenticeship in yoga, Zen, and ancient Greek and Roman physical regimens.

During this time, Pilates began devising the system of original floor exercises known today as “Pilates matwork". Within a few years, he became a nurse to the many internees under care with wartime disease and physical injury. Here, he began devising exercise apparatuses to rehabilitate the patients by taking springs from the beds and rigging them to create spring resistance and "movement" for the bedridden. This “system” formed the foundation for his style of body conditioning used today.

In many ways, Pilates equipment today is not much different than it was back then. The use of spring tension, straps, supports for back, neck and shoulders are the same uses for the equipment today. The nature of the equipment is to both challenge and support the body as it learns to move more efficiently.

With the determination to help others achieve better health, Pilates opened his first studio in New York in 1926 where he used his exercise apparatuses and more than 500 movement therapy exercises to help rehabilitate athletes and dancers.

For over 60 years this form of exercise was a well kept secret - but dancers, athletes, physical therapy patients and fitness enthusiasts have relied on this Pilates method to attain and stay in top physical form.

The benefit of Pilates’ movement therapy exercises for women thru pregnancy and post-partum is mostly misunderstood. Simply put, Pilates is a safe and effective approach to exercise for pregnant women to assist with breathing, body alignment and to recover body shape and tone after birth.

Pilates focuses on breathing, which promotes relaxation and helps activate the transversus abdominus. The transversus abdominus is the deepest of the abdominal muscles and is responsible for supporting the lumbar spine and pelvic area at a time when ligaments are lax due to the natural hormone relaxin excreted by the body during the pregnancy and nursing stages.

Lateral breathing also inherent in Pilates fitness, which improves rib cage mobility when the range of motion in the diaphragm is limited due to the high position of the baby in the third trimester. Back pain is a common side effect of pregnancy. Unless the abdominal muscles, pelvis and spine are strengthened, problems with the back can occur.

Strengthening the transversus abdominus (“abs) through guided Pilates movements will not only improve back pain and postural alignment, but will aid women during labor for a much quicker & safer delivery. Research has shown that activation of the transverses abdominus also activates the pelvic floor, keeping these muscles strong and supple for the birthing process.

This can also help with any incontinence that you may experience during and after pregnancy. The nature of movement in Pilates exercise is low impact and allows pregnant women to exercise effectively without experiencing any undue stress on the now lax joints, or an increased heart rate.

Pilates also involves many stretching and toning exercises that helps to maintain hip flexibility and stamina, which is essential for well-being and preparation for childbirth. These exercises are aided and supported by Pilates apparatuses such as the reformer: a moving carriage on a bed; the wunda chair with springs to create resistance and the trapeze table to hang from.

Pilates exercises also can be performed on a mat with small props such as pillows or cushions which supports the head, the magic circle, foam rollers and therabands for extra resistance. Most exercise modifications happen during the second and third trimester due to the ever-increasing belly.

All Pilates movements, at this point are best done seated up right or side lying. However, you can work supine as long as the head is elevated with pillows at 30 degrees above the heart for no longer than 5 minutes, turning to the side for a break. This ensures natural blood flow and oxygen to the A popular exercise among pregnant Pilates enthusiasts is legwork on the wunda chair. It involves sitting on a small stool with springs attached to a lever and pushing the lever down with your feet.

This Pilates movement provides conditioning for the legs and activation of the abdominal muscles, which stabilize the pelvis. Remember it’s very important that your Pilates instructor is certified and has experience in working with pregnant women.